


Graveyard Stories

by ThroughPestilencesAndFamines



Category: Ghost (Swedish Band), Magna Carta Cartel (Band)
Genre: Alpha needs hugs, Arvid's the sneaky brother, But there will be light moments, Ghouls, It will get dark, Lots of grave desecration, M/M, Morbid Events, Omega needs hugs, Supernatural events, really smutty, will get smutty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2018-12-18 09:09:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 14,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11871132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThroughPestilencesAndFamines/pseuds/ThroughPestilencesAndFamines
Summary: Exhausted after a long tour, Omega returns home to Linköping only to receive a call from Papa Emeritus, a man he believed to be his best friend, that his time with Ghost is over. Not being able to deal with the situation, the desperate guitarist runs into the night to do the only thing right: drinkAfter endless hours wandering around aimlessly, Omega ends up at Linköping's central cemetary where he comes cross something dark that shouldn't even exist...





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there,  
> this story has been lurking in my mind for quite some time now...  
> Here's the first chapter...  
> Feel free to leave critique, comments and kudos...

Feeling light as a feather, I threw the bag over my shoulders and grabbed the two guitar cases containing my beloved black Gibson RDs… One last time, I looked around to check if I hadn’t forgotten anything… But I had everything with me except for my big suitcase that still needed to be picked up… That’s where I’d go next once I had gotten out of the plane… It hadn’t been a long flight over from Finland… But I was glad that it was over… Finally home after all those months on the road with the last show only finished hours ago… I wouldn’t be in Linköping for long… Only a fews week until I’d fly to South America for a small festival run and meet up with the other guys… But better being home for a short time than not being home at all… I needed some rest…

After a bit of walking, I arrived at the right conveyor for my flight… But the conveyor wasn’t moving yet… I carefully put the guitar cases on the ground and reached for my mobile phone… It was late at night… I was contemplating if I should call my brother to pick me up or just take a taxi… I knew Arvid wouldn’t mind… Still, it was very late… Then, my phone spared me from the decision… It was dead… Run out of energy… Moments later, my suitcase came in sight… I simply grabbed my belongings and headed for the taxis… 

Not long after, the taxi dropped me off… The driver had been friendly and best of all, it hadn’t been a long ride… At least there were some benefits of living that close to the airport… I unlocked the entrance door and headed for my apartment… Just a few stairs up… The moment I closed the door behind me, I relaxed… Finally home after all those months… Back in my little save shore… I deeply inhaled the familiar scent of the thousands and thousands of vinyl records that had been neglected and unplayed for far too long… 

I connected my phone with the charger and began unpacking my things… Once I had separated the dirty from the clean clothes and put my RDs in their usual places, I went over to my hopefully now recharged and working phone to check for messages and missed calls… The display went to life once I pushed the power button… Only a few messages… Most from my brother who asked when I would be back… 

And one from Papa… What could he have possibly written… We had seen each other only a few hours ago… And he certainly wasn’t the person who bombarded you with pointless questions about your latest meal… Fractions of a second later, my big blue eyes stared at the display in disbelief… The message itself wasn’t long… But hard to get through… And even harder to gasp…

“The Ghouls and I have decided: You’re out of the band! It was a unanimous choice!”

I honestly don’t know how long I stared at the phone… I just couldn’t believe it… Sure, things hadn’t been smoothly in the band for quite some time now… But certainly not between my fellow Ghouls and me… The problem was another one… Maybe this was only a bad joke… I therefore decided to call Papa… To clarify a few things…

I pressed the green call button and waited… The signal tone of the phone echoed loudly through my dazed mind… How long could it take him to pick up the phone?

“Yeah?”, he finally said with an annoyed undertone, “what do you want?”

“That message…”

“You’re out!”, Papa cut me short, “have you not understood?”

“But…”

“There is no but…”

“I sacrificed seven years of my life for the band! Does that mean nothing?”

“The band decided that your time with us is over! Good luck for the future!”

After that, the line was dead… Only a distant buzz remained while I stared into the night… Seven year… All for nothing… All the time I had spent on the road… In the studio… Writing music… With him whom I knew since childhood… With the Ghouls… And especially with Alpha… With whom I reached even further back than with Papa… This just couldn’t be… 

I tried to call Alpha… But he didn’t answer the call… All I could do was staring at the display as it soon turned black… The phone slowly slipped from my fingers and hit the ground with an audible noise… But I didn’t care… I knew that I had to cope with the situation at one point but now was not the time… I grabbed my wallet, the keys and my leather jacket and slammed the door behind me… The fresh air on the streets didn’t help a bit to calm me down… I just walked… Without a proper destination in mind… 

Quite some time later, I found myself in front of a familiar store… Presumably the only store in the neighbourhood that was still open… How many times had I been here with them late at night? But I didn’t want to think about them… I only wanted to forget… At least for a few hours… I grabbed two bottles of booze… I didn’t really care what kind… Well, I ended up with vodka… And headed for the checkout…

The old cashier and owner of the corner store looked at me with a worried expression… We knew each other on bowing terms… He had been working here for a long time and I had been a customer for a long time… Ever since I had moved into the neighbourhood…

“Trouble with the girlfriend?”, he asked.

“Wish it was only that…”

“Son, before I sell you these bottle, listen to me…”

Our eyes met briefly… He really looked worried… 

“I know you’re old enough to look after yourself”, he continued, “but please, don’t drink yourself into death! Please!”

I nodded my head absently and wordlessly paid for my booze… I could feel his gaze on my back when I left… The feeling was gone once I had taken the first gulp of the despite its cheap price rather smooth alcohol… And so, a desperately drinking me aimlessly wandered through the city with only the night sky watching over me…

Quite some time later, I was stumbling towards the old iron gates of the local graveyard… A few meters back, I had left the first empty bottle of booze behind me… My mind was cloudy now… All I wanted now, was a quiet place to sit, drink and possibly sleep… From experience, this graveyard seemed to be the perfect place for that… Nobody came here at night… Except for us when we were drunk… But I had to correct myself… Now, it was only me… I passed row after row of silent stones… Some of them several hundred years old and quiet like the dead while I struggled with the seal of the second bottle of booze… But the bottle remained shut…

Frustrated, I sat down nearby a mausoleum… A rather large one… The centrepiece of the graveyard and among the oldest tombs in the area… I let myself fall on a withered lithic ledger and continued with the seal of the bottle… After countless failed attempts, the seal finally broke… I eagerly took a large gulp… 

“Desperate, are we?”

A confused me lowered the bottle and looked around… But there was no one there… I violently shook my head… There was nobody here… No one in sight… I must have imagined whatever I had believed to have heard… I took another gulp…

“Omega, we can help you!”

Luckily, I caught the bottle of booze before it could have scattered on the ground… Still, there was no one there… It had felt like several voices must have spoken simultaneously… And they must have been very close… My mind must be playing tricks on me… And indeed, I felt increasingly hazy while my vision began to blur… 

“Come closer to me and be truly free!”, the voices continued… Over and over again…


	2. The Awakening

My head was pounding… Pounding quite badly… I let out an audible groan and cursed myself for getting that drunk… Then it dawned on me why I had gotten myself drunk in the first place and immediately was rewarded with an even worse feeling in my head… My eyes remained shut… The bright light from outside was blinding me even despite my closed eyelids… Why hadn’t I closed the curtains? I usually always did that… Wait! Was I even home? I forced my eyes open…

Indeed, I had made it home… How I had gotten back there, I did not know… But that didn’t matter now… I sighed and let myself fall back in the depths of soft cushions… I closed my eyes and tried to reconstruct the last night without overexerting my poor head… What had I done?

I had come home… Gotten fired from Ghost via a text message… Spoken to Papa… Unsuccessfully tried to call Alpha… Went out in an attempt to drown my sorrow… Bought some liquor… Gotten drunk… Ended up at the cemetery… And then? I thought hard about what had come next… But all my pounding brain was able to produce was nothingness… A simple blank and empty black spot… What had I done?

Maybe, the memory would come back in time… Now was not the time to think about that… Not with a head as pounding and aching as mine… Blindly, I groped for the on-switch of my radio… On days like this, I longed for a TV… But I had gotten rid of that long ago and usually I didn’t miss it… Only after nights like this… At least I still had my radio… After a few unsuccessful attempts, it finally came to live… And the soothing tunes of ABBA filled the room…

 

“But you see

The winner takes it all - The winner takes it all

So the winner takes it all - And the loser has to fall

Throw a dice, cold as ice - Way down here, someone dear

Takes it all, has to fall - And it's plain, I complain”

 

As the tune slowly faded, I wondered if I was the loser… The one who had fallen… The one who was falling… Or the one who would be falling… How ironic all these lyrics were… Since everything I had worked for, had devoted seven years of my life for, had come to an end and he still had everything he had ever dreamt of… Numbly, I listened to the announcer that it would be time for the hourly news report after the next song… The feeling remained all the way through “Sympathy for the Devil”…

Well, there was not much sympathy left in me for the devil… Let alone a certain evil Pope…

“Good afternoon! It is 3 pm and time for our hourly news report”, the reporter brought me out of my dark thoughts… But only for a few seconds since I honestly wasn’t quite interested in the international news… Usually I was but not right now… I went back to my dark thoughts…

“… time for the national news”, the reporter announced, “Linköping, Östergötland: Described as one of the nation’s severest cases of grave desecration…”

My eyes flicked open…

“… this morning, the local police was called to the scene by the responsible caretaker of the city’s central cemetery. According to the press officer of the city’s police force, one of the oldest graves on the cemetery, a mausoleum complex that dates back at least several hundred years, had been severely desecrated. Currently, the police assume that said events must have taken place last night between 1 and 4 am. Witnesses who might have seen anything are encouraged to call…”

It took a while ‘til I registered the content of those words… Did the reporter really say that it happened in the city’s central cemetery? And that it happened last night? If so, I must have been there… Because I had gotten drunk there by the time it must have happened… Maybe I had seen something… Something my waisted brain wasn’t able to remember… Or…

My body shot up… 

No! 

No! 

No! 

This couldn’t be… But the moment, I lay eyes on myself I knew that it could be… Must be! As I was covered in blood and mud…


	3. Blood and Mud

I couldn’t believe my eyes as I stared at my mud and blood crusted hands… The usually so neat nails were black… It wasn’t easy to imagine what had been done with them… Additionally my sore muscles told me that something had been done with my arms I wasn’t used to… On top of that, my clothes were drenched in dirt and dried blood… Drunken me must have forgotten to undress himself… 

For a moment, my OCD and cleaning obsession kicked in… Those white sheets were ruined… At least, drunken me had remembered to put his shoes off before going to bed… Then I remembered that I had bigger problems than ruined sheets… Dirty sheets could be washed or replaced… Whatever drunken me had done last night on that cemetery probably couldn’t…

I slowly tried to get on my feet… The pain in my head immediately intensified… Had I really gotten that drunk? I staggered towards the bathroom… Opened the medicine cupboard and clumsily threw a couple of aspirin tablets in a cup and dissolved them with some water from the sink... While the tablets were still fizzing, I stared in the mirror… 

FUCK!

I looked like the villain of a proper gore movie… My entire face and hair were covered with dried blood… How could there even be blood and fresh meat in such an old grave? Or had something else happened? What had happened last night? Why couldn’t I remember? 

The throbbing in my head reached unbelievable heights… I never reacted to alcohol like this… Usually, it should have gotten better by now… Hopefully, the aspirin would help… I grabbed the cup with the now dissolved medicine and lifted it towards my lips… But my movements stopped…

My face was completely dark red with only my big blue eyes shining through in another colour… Not only my face was covered in blood… My teeth weren’t their usual white… They were blood red… Thus explaining the foul and metallic taste in my mouth, I had ignored so far having thought it was only a product of getting too drunk and forgetting to brush one’s teeth… What had I only done?

I barely supressed the urge to gag… I quickly put the cup down and began to rinse my mouth… I don’t know how much time I spend under the sink until I finally could only sense the slightest bit of metallic aftertaste… Quickly, I drowned the aspirin mixture and began to peel myself from the dirty clothes… Hopefully, a long and warm shower in combination with the medicine would help me with this horrible headache and enable me to think about my misery later on…

The hot water felt so good on my tortured and sore muscles… The feeling of getting cleaned as the blood and mud was washed away cheered me up and I was slowly getting back to normal… Although when I looked down and saw the masses of dirty water, the bits of euphoria within me were soon extinguished… Since the water around my feet was brown and red… 

Many litres of hot water later, I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a clean towel… Once I was dry, I stared in the mirror… Gone was the gory spectacle… Now, it was only the clean usual me with wet hair… I bent down to pick up my dirty clothes as another wave of pain shot through my head… It should have gotten better with the aspirin but it obviously hadn’t… Maybe, I needed something to eat...

I tucked the towel around myself and headed for the kitchen… There wouldn’t be anything in the fridge since I had been gone so long… Months of the road spent in cramped busses and cheap hotels… But maybe there would be something in the freezer or a few cans… I was lucky and a few minutes later, a pizza was in the oven… I could have always ordered something but in my current condition I wasn’t quite keen to interact with any other human being… 

While the pizza was in the oven, I got my laptop out and began browsing the internet about last night’s events… A few minutes later, I came across some pictures of the cemetery and a longer statement of the police concerning the circumstances of the crime: Somebody with inhumane strengths must have moved the massive lithic ledger of the grave and dug at least two and a half meters in the ground… Once down there, whoever had done it, had removed the lid of the massive coffin and started to desecrate its interior… Why the flesh found at the sight wasn’t rotten, the police couldn’t explain… Only that it would be hard to identify since traces of a fire and remnants of a stronger alcoholic beverage had been found… 

I sighed audibly upon reading that… At least drunken me had covered his traces with the remaining vodka by burning everything… So far, I hadn’t been found… Then I continued while the throbbing in my head made no signs of slowing down…

Right now, the police were still busy trying to find any DNA traces… So far, they hadn’t found anything… On top of that, it had begun to rain… And the rain was exacerbating the investigation… As of now, the remnants of the desecrated body hadn’t been identified since the inscription on the gravestone had long withered away and the records of the graveyard reached only back to the early 18th century and the grave itself was believed to be far older… The police and the media agreed upon one thing: Nobody had ever seen something like this before… Not in the entire Swedish history… 

While reading through a few other websites and reports, the timer of my oven started to ring… Somehow, I was glad that my research had come to an end since my aching head currently wasn’t quite fond of such activities… The headache hadn’t ceased… To be honest, it only had gotten worse and worse while reading… I powered the laptop down, closed it and stood up get the pizza out of the oven… 

A few moments later, I sat in front of the steaming hot dish… Usually, my mouth should have been watering by now… The opposite was the case as I looked down on that greasy piece of cheesy tomato-covered pie… Nevertheless, I grabbed the first slice and took the first bite… It was only a small bite but my stomach immediately rejected it and I had to spit it out… That had tasted horrible… Maybe the pizza had expired… But upon finding the date on the packaging it actually hadn’t…

I felt sick from the food… I didn’t know why… And the pain in my head was getting worse and worse… There was only one thing I wanted to do right now… And that was sleeping… I hastily removed the mud and blood drenched sheets and quickly threw them in the washer… Not bothering to properly put new sheets on the bed, I simply threw a few blankets on there, crawled into my bed and drifted away…

I was woken by the sound of my ringing phone… My head seemed to be on fire… The horrible pain in my head had only gotten worse… A lot worse… I blindly reached for my phone and answered the call: “Yeah, who is it?”

“Your brother”, I heard a familiar voice at the other end of the lane speak, “why haven’t you called me? It’s been ages since we’ve talked to each other! I could have picked you up from the airport, you know! Can I come over today?”

I sighed: “Arvid, I really appreciate it…”

“I would always pick you up! No matter where and no matter when!”, he interrupted me, “I’m on my way…”

“Hey, wait!”, I tried to stop him, “please, not today! I really want to see you, too, but I’m feeling horrible! I think I caught the flu…”

“Are you alright?”, Arvid asked in concern, “I could always get you something!”

“Thanks, but I think I’m fine”, I hastily replied, “I just need to sleep this out… I’ll call you when I’m better!”

“Promise?”

“I promise!”, I said, “until then, little brother!”

I quickly ended the call… My eyes widened upon seeing the date on the screen… I had slept for almost one and a half days straight… Something like that had never happened before… And I still felt like shit… Then I caught sight of my hands and especially of my nails and things were really taking a turn towards the weird… They looked like claws…


	4. Revelations

The skin of my hands appeared to be darkened… Like I had dipped it in ink and unsuccessfully tried to wash the colour off entirely… While the nails looked like they had gotten sharper and thicker… What was going on with me… I need to see…

I struggled to get myself out of my bed… My knees were shaking underneath me… Much like my hands, my entire body seemed to have darkened while the nails on my toes seemed to have followed the direction of the nails on my fingers…

If the things were happening what I thought were happening, I would kill myself because of the shire ridiculousness and irony of the whole situation…

The view in the mirror confirmed everything… I was indeed changing… My teeth were beginning to sharpen… My tongue showed the first signs that it was about to split in half… The contours of my entire face appeared to be sharper and less round than usual… The ears pointier… The dark blond of my hair was blackening… The white of my eyeballs was grey and the blue of the irises a lot darker than usual… 

On top of that, two small bumps had formed on my forehead right under the hairline… I lifted my hand and carefully touched the bump on the right… My hand shot back very quickly as an excruciating wave of pain shot through my head… At least I had localised the source of the pain inside my head… I didn’t want to see it anymore… Couldn’t stand the view of myself… I turned off the lights…

My legs gave in… This was just too much… I sank to the ground like a sack of potatoes… All I wanted to do right now, was to simply lay down, sleep and wake up to see that everything had just been a dream and nothing more… 

But I couldn’t lay on my back… Something was in the way… I didn’t care what and simply turned on my belly, threw the glasses away and buried my face in my arms and tried to go back to sleep… But the pain in my body turned that in an impossible endeavour… 

Hour after hour I lay there as the pain in my body and more specifically in my head increased… I lay there in utter darkness… This time, the curtains were shut… Minutes turned to hours… And the pain got worse and worse… Especially on the two bumps on my forehead and on my lower back… What had I done? What had drunken me come across in that damned grave? What was happening to me?

Countless hours later, I heard a quiet ripping noise… Like flesh that was torn apart… But it didn’t hurt… It was more like a macabre kind of relief as the pain on the right sight of my forehead slowly faded… I somehow managed to get my hand up to carefully touch it… I came across something smoothly and boney emerging from right under my hairline… It was small yet sharp… The touch sent shivers through my body… The thing was still pounding but not as bad as before… Maybe there was more to come… And indeed, I felt it growing… 

An eternity later, the other side broke through… The pain in my head finally faded to a bearable level… But before that, the thing on my lower back tore through the skin as well… And grew and grew… One thing I realized over all the time I was laying there, was that my vision despite the darkness seemed to be getting clearer and clearer… Even though I wasn’t wearing my glasses and it was pitch black inside my apartment… Then, I was finally able to sleep… 

I awoke… I didn’t know how long I had slept… But the pain was finally gone… I felt better… Nothing was hurting me… I could finally think clear now… But not only my mind was clear… My vision was clear as well… I could see the shower in front of me… The washer next to it with the hopefully clean sheets… And even the details on the tilework… Well, and the sharp thick nails of my fingers that reminded me more of claws than of any human hand… 

I slowly got to me feet… My now clawed feet… For some odd reasons, the reflection in the mirror didn’t scare me… All it did was made me laugh… A hearty laugh escaped my mouth… This was just ridiculous! Who the hell gets fired from a band after having portrayed a character called “A Nameless Ghoul”, comes home and accidentally turns himself into such a creature… A ghoul… What else could it be but a ghoul? There was no other way… I was a creature now that shouldn’t even exist… That I had always regarded as a fantasy product… A part of an old Arabic folk tale… 

But it had to be a ghoul by all the new features of my appearance I spotted… The pair of small horns on my forehead… About 10 centimetres long, slightly crooked, with a smooth surface and sharp edges and pitch-black with a bit of red mixed in… I had to touch them… Carefully my fingers, well, better claws now, came into contact with the base of the horns… Oh! How sensitive they were at the base… The area, where they had right poked through the skin, was crusted with dried blood… Seems like I had to take a shower once I had finished staring at myself… 

My eyes trailed downwards… To stare in the reflection of the exact same eyes… There was nothing, white nor blue, left… They were just black… Pitch black… And even blacker than the skin that surrounded them… Despite the darkness, I could even identify colours to a certain degree… Now being nocturnal…

My entire appearance seemed to have sharpened… From the teeth and sharp tips of the split tongue to the cheekbones all the way up to the pointy ears… And even the long, happily and uncontrollably waving tail behind me seemed to have two rather sharp and pointy ends… I helplessly looked at my new me… And only wished that I would be back to normal upon waking up… But I knew that something like that would never happen since I wasn’t dreaming… 

I sighed audibly and jumped in the shower to wash off the blood… Once done, I grabbed the next best towel only to curse myself seconds later since my sharp claws had ripped through the fabric… I needed to be more careful… A thing I had to remind myself once more, when they ripped through the first pair of boxers I was about to get out of my wardrobe… And again, when my sharpened toes ripped through the next pair… The third pair finally found its place without being torn to pieces… But I abandoned the thought to put on more clothes… First of all, because I didn’t want to ruin more of my wardrobe and second, because I had the feeling that my new tail wasn’t quite fond of jeans without having made certain adjustments to the back of the fabric…

Then, my stomach produced a roaring noise and I remembered that I hadn’t eaten properly in days… Not since I had come home from Finland… Well, if you exclude whatever drunken he had come across and eaten in that cursed graveyard… 

I knew perfectly well what being a ghoul meant to your diet… But on the other hand, I was extremely stubborn… Maybe there were other ways and alternatives to human carcasses… 

Hours later, I had indeed made progress… So far, I hadn’t been able to stomach anything… Nothing wanted to go down… Thus, making me feel horribly sick… But I didn’t stop… I had a few more cans to open until I’d turn my attention to the meat in my freezer… 

And surprisingly, my stubbornness was rewarded… I could indeed eat canned pineapples… All I could think of while eating the sugary fruit was what Alpha would say if he could see me eating his all-time favourite and the way he’d so heartily laugh at me… I smiled while thinking about my friend… Then, I remembered that he was amongst the people who had kicked me out of the band and my smile quickly faded…

Well, at least I knew that I could survive on canned pineapples… But a few minutes later, I knew that I was wrong… Two entire cans of pineapples later, I was still feeling as hungry as before… So, I could actually stomach the fruit but it was not filling me up… 

That’s when I turned to the meat… I still had some hamburger meat in the freezer… Maybe that would work… First, I tried to roast it… But the smell alone was off-turning enough that I didn’t even dared try it… I put the remaining, now partially defrosted meat on a plate and stared at it… I didn’t want to do it… But I had to… I picked the plate up and precautionally was about to make my way to the bathroom in case I had to spit out larger quantities of food… 

Then, my phone began to ring… The loud and totally unexpected noise made me jump… In slow motion, I saw the plate with the partially defrosted meat taking off and making its way through the air… How I wished I’d be standing at the other end of the room…

To my sheer utter surprise, I was, a blink of my eyes later, standing right where I had imagined to be standing and swiftly caught the plate with the meat still on top… I stared at the plate in astonishment… 

The phone was still ringing… I knew it wouldn’t do that much longer… I pictured standing in the living room right where I had put that annoying thing and it worked magically… Fractions of a second later, I picked up the phone without having walked a single metre… 

I answered the call: “Yeah, who is it?”

“Your brother!”, Arvid answered, “are you alright? You haven’t called in days! Finally gotten rid of the flu?”

“Almost…”

“Well, you sound pretty alive from the outside”, he chuckled, “you’re having a party in there?”

“You’re here?”

“Right outside the door! Why are all the curtains shut? It’s the middle of the day?”

“I have a horrible migraine…”

“Stop kidding me and open door!”, he said, “if you don’t, I can always go home and get the spare key!”

I sighed… There was nothing in the world I’d like more than to simply disappear… No matter where… Just gone from here… But I stayed where I was… Nothing happened… 

“Are you going to let me in?”, Arvid asked again…

“Little brother”, I sighed since I couldn’t hide myself for all eternity, “I’ll let you in if you promise to listen to the entire story before you do anything stupid?”

“What could you have possibly done, dear brother?”, Arvid laughed…

“You’ll see!”


	5. Brothers

Reluctantly I walked towards the entrance door… How much I’d give right now to simply disappear or for this door to remain shut… But I knew Arvid too well… He’d get in… No matter what… Well, he was the one person on this planet I trusted the most, well besides Alpha before all this had happened… But he had betrayed me… If I was ever going to tell anyone, it would be my little brother…

I sighed deeply and opened the door… The light was blinding me… I quickly closed the door once Arvid was inside my apartment… I watched as he stumbled through the darkness…

“Seriously, brother!”, he said with an annoyed undertone, “it’s the middle of the day and you are sitting here in the dark!”

Before I could stop him, he had already ripped one of the curtains open… The bright light was blinding me… Desperately, I tried to shield myself from the light… 

“Much better!”, my brother assessed and turned around, “WHAT THE HELL!?!”

As my eyes slowly adjusted themselves to the light, we were staring at each other… He with his mouth open wide…

“Hello, brother!”, I finally said, “nice to see you!”

It took a while until Arvid was able to reply: “Hello, brother… Are these the… new… costumes?”

That was one scenario I would have never expected…

“…Well, if they are, they look fucking realistic!”, he continued, “if that is what you’ve been up to ever since you’ve come home I must congratulate you on your craftwork!”

“These aren’t costumes…”

“Stop kidding me!”

“No, seriously!”, I began, “this is really me!”

He only laughed: “Have you and your satanic friends finally come across some real black magic or just a good costume designer from Hollywood?”

“This isn’t a costume and I’m no longer a part of Ghost!”

But my brother didn’t listen and went on to open the remaining curtains… How would he understand? See, that this was indeed real?

“Hey, Arvid!”, I yelled… He did the exact thing I had intended… He turned around… Meanwhile, I threw the plate with the still half-defrosted meat in his direction and desperately imagined standing next to him to catch the flying object… Luckily, I popped up next to him and caught the plate… 

“Shit!”, was all he said for a long time while he stared at me with big eyes and his mouth open wide… After an endless amount of time, he finally continued: “You really weren’t kidding… This is really you? How the hell did that happen?”

I told him… Everything… As much as I knew… Arvid never laughed nor tried to run away… He simply listened until I had finished…

Once the last words of my story had been spoken, he looked at me: “Unholy lord! I mean what sort of crazy coincidence is this?”

I snorted: “Well, that’s the exact same thing that’s in my mind ever since all of this occurred!”

He only shook his head: “You come home, get fired as a Nameless Ghoul, get drunk and accidentally turn yourself into the very creature…”

“This truly must be bad luck”, I said…

“Did it hurt?”, he asked quietly…

“The most painful thing I have ever felt”, I answered truthfully… Then I caught his worried expression and quickly added: “But I’m feeling fine now! Thank you for not running away because of all this…”

“Martin!”, he said while pulling me face to face… This was one of the rare instances he used my birth name and not the name I had chosen so long ago… But the fact that he did, showed me that he was very serious and honestly meant what he was about to say, “first and foremost we’re brothers! Brothers help each other no matter what! This will change nothing between us! Absolutely nothing! Your appearance may have changed but deep down you’re still my brother and always will be! And I might add that despite the horns and stuff, your eyes are still the same deep blue as they’ve always been!”

I raised an eyebrow: “Blue?!? They aren’t black?”

He shook his head: “No! They’re their usual oceanic!”

“Stop kidding me!”

“I’m not kidding you!”

I turned on my heels and stormed in the still dark bathroom to stare at my reflexion… Indeed, my eyes were back to normal… Well the whites of my eyes were white again while the irises had turned to their usual deep blue… But the longer I was staring at myself, the darker they turned… Then, I had an idea… I ripped the curtains open to let the light in… It was slowly turning dark outside… But it still wasn’t night yet… The darkening of my eyes immediately came to a halt... Instead, they brightened up again… They were adjustable to the current lighting conditions… 

“They’re alterable…”, I whispered… 

“Well, maybe the rest of you is, too!”

I jumped… I hadn’t heard Arvid entering the room… 

I looked at him: “You really think so?”

“Brother!”, he said while grabbing my bare shoulder, “I’ve just seen your eyes change and in all honesty, I don’t believe that these claws and the horns are for everyday life… They’re certainly not suitable for daily usage… I mean what sort of life is this when you start your day by ripping several pairs of your underwear? So far, we know that your eyes automatically adjust themselves to the lighting conditions… Maybe you can learn to control that… And maybe you can change some other parts of your appearance, too… I mean you used to be a human… There must be some remnants of your previous existence…”

I looked at my brother with a slight sparkle of hope emerging in my heart: “Thank you for everything! I think in my current situation, since I can’t leave the house looking like this, I’ll have plenty of time to experiment…”

Arvid stared back: “If you ever need something, I’ll get it for you! You said you were hungry… I’d get anything for you! Anything!”

I shook my head knowing what he had referred to: “I don’t know if I really need that! I was trying out possible substitutes when you arrived…”

“Then try it!”, my brother said…

But by smelling alone, I knew it wouldn’t work… To make sure, I tried anyway and spat the raw beef out immediately… 

“I’ll get you the thing!”, my brother said once my head had left the spitting bowl… 

I fixated him with my eyes: “Don’t get yourself caught digging up carcasses for your freak of a brother! If somebody gets caught, it should be me! Not you!”

“Don’t worry about me, big brother!”

“But the police… They’re still heavily guarding all cemeteries within reach…”

“Don’t worry about me!”, Arvid repeated, “I have a few ideas…”

I knew that arguing was pointless: “If you say so…”

“I’ll be fine, brother!”, he said, “I think I’ll have to leave now… I don’t want to starve you longer than necessary… If I’m not successful tonight, I’ll be tomorrow by the latest and if not, I’ll be behind bars!”

“Don’t joke about that!”

“I’m taking this very seriously!”, Arvid said, “that’s why I’m leaving now! But before I leave, I have to test out one thing…”

I wondered what that would be… But then…

“ARVID!”, I said before sharply inhaling a large amount of air, “get your fingers… off my…”

But my brother only laughed and made no intentions to stop squeezing my tail… It took a while until I had finally managed to wrestle my newest body part out of my brother’s tight grip…

“Why did you do that?”

“I just doubted its validity”, Arvid replied swiftly…

“You’re satisfied?”

“Yes!”, my brother replied with a wide grin, “more than that! Brother, I’d never thought I’d make you purr!”

“I didn’t purr!”

“Yes, you did! You liked it very much!”, he laughed, “I’ll tell that to the ladies once you’re back in a presentable state! If you excuse me now, I need to get some food hunting done! And remember, brother, nothing has changed between the two of us! Nothing!”

I stared at him as he headed for the door and left… That had gone better than I could have ever imagined… He truly was my brother and I was glad and proud of that…


	6. Solitude

I only hoped that he wouldn’t get caught… But Arvid was too smart to just enter any graveyard and start digging for bodies… At least I hoped he was as I watched him walking down on the empty streets… My eyes followed him until he turned around a corner and was gone…

My eyes scanned the now empty apartment while thought about the words of my brother… Maybe I could change… But before I’d focus on that, I first needed to clarify something else… 

I grabbed the know empty plate and eyed it… Well, so far this had worked… I threw it and imagined to be standing at the other side of the room to catch it… And indeed, I caught it just like the other time… I repeated the process a few times and always caught the plate… Then, I just threw it without thinking… The porcelain simply shattered while I remained where I was… I grabbed another plate and Imagined to just catch it… Again, I remained where I was and the second plate shattered… 

Lots of smashed china later, well, meanwhile I had switched to a tennis ball, I was very sure that I had to think about the very place I wanted to pop up in order to succeed… I thought about standing in my bathroom and indeed, fractions of a second later, I stood right there… 

Deeply satisfied by the developments, I imagined to be in my bedroom where I popped up only a blink of an eye later… I carefully went on to open a few drawers and began to dress myself… At least a bit… I managed to put shirt and sweatpants on… I didn’t dare to jump in my jeans since I feared that my sharp toe nails would only rip it to pieces… Shoes were absolutely impossible… I sighed and grabbed a light jacket and covered my head with its hood… 

I took one last breath and thought about the woods south of the city… When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing next to the small river that flew through the very woods I had thought about… A place I had often visited when I had sought the solitude of the forest since other people hardly ever came here… I decided to stay there for a little longer… I enjoyed the fresh air after all those days in my tiny apartment… I let my clawed toes dug into the loose soil of the ground while I absently scratched the quintessence symbol in the bark of the next tree… At least these claws were good for one thing…

After that, I focused on more distant destinations… The only problem: They had to be rather remote so that no other human being would be able to spot me… First, a hiking trail close to Umeå I knew from my childhood… Then, an abandoned motorway station we had once accidentally stopped at while driving to Glasgow… And finally, a desolate beach in Australia where Alpha had almost drowned while trying to surf… 

It was dark on the other side of the globe as my feet dipped into the cold water of the ocean as it was winter down under… I inhaled the salty breeze of the sea… Distance really didn’t seem to matter with this new method of transportation as long as I had the destination in mind… Maybe I should try it out with some destinations I hadn’t visited yet… Maybe pictures would be enough… I thought about desolate places… Svalbard? No… There might be polar bears… Anadyr? Not really… Simply too cold… A desert? Too hot… Then, I had another idea… I got my phone out and searched for pictures of this remote British Overseas Territory I had read about… Apparently, there were only a couple of hundred people living on this inaccessible island… What was its name?

Tristan Da Cuhna… 

I stared at the first picture I came across and imagined standing there… Fractions of a second later, I popped up next to some barren potato patches… But instead of being able to enjoy the view, I unfortunately seemed to have popped up right next to an elderly farmer who stared at me with utter terror in his eyes while I returned the gaze… Call this bad luck again…

“Christ, protect us from the devil!”, I heard him whisper in English…

I rolled my eyes: “Nice meeting you, too!” 

He fell on his knees while praying to the God above while I only shook my head and disappeared…


	7. Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I'm back with this story! In The Woods is finished and I can now focus on Graveyard Stories again...

Back in my apartment in Linköping, I wrote Arvid a quick text message concerning my latest achievements and then contemplated what to do next while still wondering about that latest incident… 

I thought about putting a vinyl on but that simply wasn’t enough… Longingly, I stared at my guitars… There was nothing in the world I wanted to do right now but strumming some strings and creating melodies and riffs… But with these awful claws I’d only tear the strings, damage the wood and do whatever unspeakable crime one could possibly imagine to my precious instruments… And so, I sat there and stared at my guitars… Sulking over my existence… 

All I wished for was being able to play the guitar… Holding the instrument in my fingers… Strumming its strings… Getting rid of the claws… For my hands to have normal fingers and normal nails again… For my hands to change… This line of though went through my mind like an endless loop… Over and over again… Again and again… 

I absently stared at my fingers… And my jaw dropped…

Gone were the claws…

Well, the skin was still black, but the nails had lost their animalistic appearance and looked more like belonging to a human being… Claws had turned into normal fingers… I stared at my fingers… For a very long time, I just stared at them… Maybe Arvid really was right with his assumption… Maybe this body wasn’t made for everyday life… But maybe could adapt with enough training… To blend in… 

But before I could further explore whatever my new body had to offer, I reached for the next best guitar…

That hadn’t been a good idea… Not at all…

Since the already returned claws ripped straight through the majority of the strings…

Luckily, this hadn’t been one of my good guitars… Once again, I needed to remind myself to be more careful… At least with the parts of my body that weren’t fully under my control yet… From my experimentation with my new preferred method of transportation, I managed to turn my claws back into something humanoid in no time… A good part of the afternoon later, I was finally able to strum my beloved strings again… Although I stayed away from my most precious instruments… 

For the first time since that damned call, my mood was finally brightening up… The music and the feeling of producing it myself cheered me up immensely… I didn’t even realize that I was singing…

“Minutes turns to hours   
Days are dating years   
Fuck it all  
Everything is hopeless   
Drowning in our tears   
Fuck it all  
Lies won't help you   
Minutes turns to hours   
Days are dating years   
Fuck it all  
Dreaming is forever Living is as well   
Fuck it…”

“You should really think about releasing that one! Really!”

I jumped while the guitar in my hands produced a series of very dissonant sounds as the freshly returned claws ripped straight through the strings… Again…

“Arvid!”, I yelled at my brother who had just appeared in the doorframe, “why did you have to sneak in and scare me like that?”

My brother only shrugged his shoulders: “I just wanted to check on you… Well, I was standing outside the door when I heard your beautiful voice! Haven’t heard it in ages!”

“Now, I ruined my last set of strings!”

“You play guitar with these… claws?”, Arvid asked with a raised eyebrow…

“No! Of course not!”, I snorted, “until you arrived, I had everything under control! See!”

I stretched my left hand out and concentrated… But nothing happened…

“What is this all about?”, my brother asked with an annoyed undertone…

I rolled my eyes over his impatientness, took a deep breath and concentrated harder… This time, the claws turned back to human fingers…

“Ohh!”, a wide smile had appeared on Arvid’s face, “that’s wonderful!”

I smiled: “You were right…”

“Usually I am!”, he laughed…

“Still, you ruined my last set of strings! And I have no intention to ruin one of my babies since I can’t fully control this yet!”, I said while showing him the effects my claws had left on the instrument in my hand…

“Well”, he began, “I just wanted to check on you and ask you if there’d be anything I can get for you… Anything else besides some strings?”

“Lots of cheap strings… Ehh… Beer and canned pineapples… And cigarettes!”

“No more… meat?”

I shook my head: “I have still plenty left… I don’t want to overdo it… Sometimes less is better… How much do I owe you?”

Arvid smiled: “It’s fine! I got a private concert! That’s everything I could wish for and you look a lot happier than the other day! You owe me nothing!”

Once my brother had left with the promise to buy me a ton of new guitar strings and return the next day, my attention shifted back to my guitar… My poor mutilated guitar I should add… Somewhere in the back of my shelves, I found another set of strings and a few minutes later, I was back to strumming… Music bubbled out of my fingers, not claws, and with a lot more confidence than before, I started to sing…

Suddenly, a noise brought me out of my musical delirium… That damn phone was ringing again… Why did I always forget to turn it on mute…?

I blindly reached for the damn thing and answered: “Yep!”

“Man, where are you?”, a euphoric voice yelled through the speaker, “we’re hitting the stage in less than two hours and you still haven’t showed up!”


	8. Fallacy

“What?”, I asked in utter confusion while staring at the number on the screen…

“Come on!”, the voice at the other side of the lane continued to yell, “where have you hidden yourself? You honestly can’t be nervous after all those years! Seriously man, I’ve been looking for you for hours! Where the fuck are you?”

“I’m home…”

“Stop kidding me! WHERE ARE YOU?”

“Home! In Linköping! Where else am I supposed to be, Alpha?”

“You’re joking, are you?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you have a fucking concert to play in a few hours!”

“Stop kidding me, Alpha! After you agreed to throw me out of the band! How am I…”

“Wait!”, Alpha interrupted me, “repeat that!”

“After you agreed to throw me out…”

“What are you talking about, Omega?”

“Don’t play stupid!”

“I’m not!”, the usually so playful undertone had disappeared out of Alpha’s voice, “what are you talking about? Could you please, and please in a way that I understand it, explain this whole “agreed to throw me out”-thing? You sound like you’re talking gibberish to me!”

“Once I got home, Papa called me in the name of the band and told me that my time with Ghost was up and basically kicked me out!”

“He did what?”, Alpha asked with a hoarse voice…

“That my time with Ghost was up!”, I repeated… I removed the phone from my ear… This was just ridiculous… The last thing I needed, was my former best friend playing stupid and insulting me… My finger was above the red button to end the call…

“Wait!”, Alpha yelled through the speaker, “that’s the first thing I’m hearing! None of the others have anything to do with this!”

“Stop lying!”

“This must be Papa! None of us know of any of this!”

“But…”

“Why didn’t you just call one of us?”

“I tried! But you didn’t answer!”

“When?”

“After I called Papa…”, I tried to remember, “must have been late at night… Well, after I arrived at my place!”

“Let me think about this”, Alpha said, “well, as far as I remember this guy we met backstage after you had left invited us to his cottage a few miles away from the festival deep inside the woods… None of us had any signal there… We partied until the early morning… Well, all but Papa… But why didn’t you call afterwards? You honestly don’t believe that I would agree into any of this?”

“I was quite upset, got pretty drunk and some crazy shit happened…”, my voice cracked…

“Martin, listen to me!”, Alpha said with a determined voice, “you’re my friend! My best friend! We have known each other for such a long time! I would never ever in my life abandon this friendship nor throw you out of this band! I mean after all we’ve been through… You are my friend and always will be! I didn’t know of any of this! And I don’t think any of the ghouls do! Do you believe me?”

“Do you swear?”

“Stop kidding me! Of course, I swear!”, Alpha’s voice thundered through the speaker, “how little do you think of me?”

“I’m sorry!”, I said realizing what I had just said, “Simon, I would… I would never think so little of you! You, too, are my friend! My best friend and always will be! This is just such a fucked-up situation…”

“You really are in Sweden?”

“Yes!”

Alpha sighed: “This is simply unbelievable! The fact that Papa pulled off something so utterly humanly disgusting behind our backs… After all you’ve sacrificed for the band! Hang on there! I’ll talk to him! This definitively wasn’t a democratic decision! I’ll try to change his mind!”

“Wait!”, I tried to throw in… But it was too late…

“I’ll call you back!”, was the last thing Alpha said before he ended the call…


	9. Tears

I stared at the dead phone in my hand… Somehow, my brain refused to process what had just happened… The call seemed so surreal… For weeks a big part of myself had felt utterly hurt by what had happened with Ghost… Between people that used to consider themselves colleagues and most importantly friends… Especially the feeling of having lost Alpha had pained me… More than I had admitted to myself… Yet somewhere in the depths of my mind, something had still hoped for an alternative to all the grief, sorrow, loss and betrayal… A notion that our friendship was still there… For a call…

A big weight seemed to be vanishing from my shoulders and my broken heart while my mind tried to process everything… Maybe, everything wasn’t that bad after all… Maybe there was still light… Maybe, I wasn’t that alone… Of course, there was always Arvid… But Arvid simply wasn’t Alpha… He hadn’t spent years on the road with me… Living in cramped busses, sweaty venues, too many airplanes and a shockingly low amount of privacy… On tour, you were just always together… Not that it was a bad thing… At least if you liked each other… If you were friends… While still with the band, I had never questioned Alpha’s status… Well, then the call came… But maybe, there was more to that… Probably a huge nest of lies, jealousy and somebody without basic human emotions… And that definitively wasn’t Alpha… That someone simply was a rat who had secretly planted the black plague in Alphas and my friendship… But so far, our friendship had survived everything… Well, and one could survive the plague… Together!

My thoughts were racing while I was staring at my phone… Euphoria mixed with guilt… Somehow, I felt guilty to have ever doubted our friendship… But how could I have known? It had happened and there was no way back now… But one could always try to work things out… But how? 

In the end, it was my ringing phone that brought me out of the chaotic abyss of my mind…

I answered the call: “Alpha?”

“He… he…”

My heart stopped while I heard the sobbing through the speaker that was tightly pressed against my ear… 

“Alpha, please, tell me…”, my voice cracked…

“He…”, Alpha began again, but before he could form anything remotely coherent, be burst into very boisterous tears…

“Alpha, I’m here with you!”, I tried to calm him… But to no avail… 

“Alpha, please! Everything will be…”

The ‘fine’ was on my tongue… But already in my head, that word sounded like a lie… On the other side of the line, noisy tears continued to be shed… In my mental eye, the picture of a crying Alpha appeared… The black paint had already been applied for the show… And now, streams of black tears were running down his face… The paint smudgy… His eyes red…

“Please, calm down!”, I tried again, “Alpha, please…”

But Alpha simply continued to cry… 

This must feel like the call I had received from Papa all these weeks ago… Feeling the solid ground underneath your feet being shattered into billions of pieces… And Alpha was alone… Like I had been alone… There was no need to think about what had happened to me because I had been foolish… And alone… I couldn’t let anything happen to Alpha… 

“Where are you?”, this time, my voice came out a lot more determinately… 

The sobbing stopped for a second, at least long enough for me to decipher Alpha’s answer: “In… Argentina…”

That wasn’t enough: “Send me a picture of your room!”

“W…why?”

“Just do it!”

I listened as the phone was removed from Alpha’s face… Yet I still could hear the sobbing mixed with Alpha’s ragged breaths… With every cell of my body tensed up, I stared at the display of my phone and waited for something to pop up… 

Suddenly, the phone vibrated… I jumped and almost dropped the device… I hastily opened the picture… It was fuzzy… I barely could make a difference between the wall and the bed Alpha obviously had tried to photograph…. His hands must have been shaking… I only hoped this photograph would make the do… And concentrated… 

Suddenly, the sobbing got a lot louder…


	10. Together

I took a deep breath… I had indeed made it to Argentina as I was staring at the bed I had just moments ago only seen as a blurry image on the display of my phone… Now, it wasn’t fuzzy… It was real… And the sobbing had gotten a lot louder…

I took an even deeper breath and turned on my heels… Alpha stood there… Still crying rather noisily and staring at the dark display of his phone that was violently shaking in his hand… He hadn’t even noticed me… He just looked so lonely, gloomy and utterly broken… Probably the same as I had been all those weeks ago…

My heart couldn’t bare it any longer… With a few swift steps, I closed the distance between us… Fractions of a second later, Alpha was caught in my big arms and tightly pressed against my body… 

“I’m here for you!”, I softly whispered into his ear over all the noises the absolutely devastated guitarist was producing… Carefully and not too forcefully, I padded his back trying my best to soothe him… And for some unexplainable reasons, Alpha didn’t even question my presence… Not that I had been in Sweden only seconds ago… He was probably simply glad that someone was there for him… I would have been, too, all those weeks ago… Simply someone, to hold you in his arms… To be there for you… To tell you that everything will be fine… That everything will be alright… And that’s what I did… I simply held Alpha in my arms… I was simply there for him… For Alpha alone… Reassuring him… Calming him… Soothing him… Doing what friends, well, best friends, were supposed to be there for… 

I had no idea how long it took for the crying to actually stop… But in the end, I succeeded…

“You’re feeling better?”, I finally asked after a long period of silence… But not a negative one… A rather soothing one…

I could hear Alpha inhale a large amount of air before he answered with a hoarse voice: “I… Well… Yes… I… I could… say that…”

“You know that I will always be there for you! Always!”

Alpha sighed: “I know!”

And with that, Alpha buried his face deeper in my shoulder while I continued to pad his back… After some time, I raised my voice once more: “I only hope this whole situation will not change a thing between us...”

I felt Alpha shaking his head that was still buried in my shoulder while he mumbled: “Never! I mean this is not your fault… We’ve always gone through everything together… So far, you have always been there for me… In fact…”

Suddenly, Alpha froze, and I felt his head slowly free himself from my arms and shoulder: “…you’re here… But how is that even possible… You… You said you… were in Sweden…”

Finally, Alpha had freed himself and lifted his head… But his eyes were closed… As if he didn’t want to face whatever strange and fucked-up situation lay ahead of him… His face was still heavily marked the the remnants of tears… The area around his eyes red and slightly swollen… This was the moment I had feared… Wanted to evade… But for Alpha’s sake, it had been worth it… Even though I wasn’t particularly looking forward to what would happen soon… 

Then, Alpha opened his eyes…

For a brief second, his icy blue eyes just stared at me in utter terror until he finally whispered: “HOLY SHIT!”


	11. Truth

“I… I… I… can explain this but plea…”

“Are you alright?”

That wasn’t the reaction I had expected: “What?”

Alpha looked at me deeply concerned: “Are you okay? I… You… I… mean…”

My jaw dropped… I couldn’t answer…

“Please, tell me you’re not hurt!”, Alpha said pleadingly… His eyes open wide and filled with nothing but worry… 

While I continued to stare at my friend in disbelief, my tongue somehow began to work: “I’m… I’m alright now… Well… I… This… is just such… a… mess…”

I wanted to say more… But simply couldn’t…

Before I could do anything, Alpha simply stormed forwards and was now the one embracing me: “Damn! I’m… I’m just happy that you’re okay! And that you came here for me! I’m sure that wasn’t an easy decision but… but I’m glad you did! I… I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done without you! I’m sure… I’ sure there is an explanation behind all of this… and you will tell me… But for now, I’m only glad that you’re here with me!”

I was out of words… Speechless as I heard my heart pounding in my chest and my brain bristling with emotions I couldn’t process because there were simply too much… But despite my lack of words, Alpha didn’t pull away… He just remained there… With me… For what seemed like an eternity…Once again, together as one…After a while, I let my head sink on his shoulder, simply glad that he had stayed with me to take some of the weight off me… Not just physically speaking…

“You can’t imagine how grateful I am that you’re still here!”, I whispered after minutes of silence…

Alpha in turn now padded my back: “You chose to be there for me! I stay to be here for you!”

“How did you even know it was me despite my… my new… look?”

This time, Alpha laughed: “No matter how you look, it’s still the same inside you! You could have shown up in full drag and it would still be you! There is simply no one on this planet who would treat another person in such a dire situation like you! I mean, this might be the most fucked-up situation ever but it’s not the first time you have been there for me and done the exact right thing: simply being there for me no matter the circumstances! Your actions speak louder than whatever you appear on the outside! Louder than words! Martin, you will always be you and we will always be friends and I deeply hope that nothing will ever tear us apart! No matter what you will tell me about how all of this happened!”

I sighed in relief: “Thank you, Simon! That’s more than I had ever hoped for!”

Icy blue eyes met with mine: “No matter what it is, I will listen, always, and I intend to stay! Whatever you’ve done or whatever happened to you can’t be that bad!”

With furrowed brow I tried to process his words and decided that the truth would be the best: “Alpha, you still might want to sit down… It’s… fucked-up!”

“You won’t shock me!”

“Wanna bet?”

“It’s that bad?”

“Possibly… But what about the show? Won’t Papa…”

“Fuck Papa! If he wants me to play after all this shit, he needs to come here and personally drag me on stage! Right now, the only thing I fucking care about is you!”, and with that, Alpha let himself fall on the sofa obviously waiting for me to join him… Which I did moments later… Story time… Alpha, much like Arvid, didn’t interrupt me…

“Well, and then you called”, I was about to end my story, “you sounded so devastated and I… I could have never let anything happen to you… I know how it feels like and you… you mean so much to me although I never really told you and… and I just had to be there for you… and so… Well… That’s why I came here despite everything… I… I just want you to know… how much our friendship… you, Alpha, mean to me… and I hope… this will not change…”

“No, it won’t!”, Alpha finally ended my incoherent babble, “but before I say more I want to clarify one thing: you accidentally turned yourself into the very creature you used to portray?”

“Yeah, as ridiculous as it sounds…”

Alpha’s hearty laugh rang in my ears as he mockingly elbowed me: “You big teddy bear, that could have only happened to you!”

I looked at Alpha with a raised eyebrow…

“Come on!”, Alpha began to explain, “you’re such a sucker for the occult! One day, something like that had to happen! Once day, either a pack of werewolves had to turn up or some weird satanic death cult had to sacrifice you!”

I only shook my head: “But will you mind?”

Alpha smirked: “As long as you don’t eat me! Well, how does that work by the way?”

“Arvid and I tested it… As long as it’s still alive, I’m not interested…”

“So, but how does that specifically work? How do you nourish yourself? After all the media outrage, you cannot possibly be foolish enough to dig up some bodies! Even Arvid would not be foolish enough! He gets your food though, right?”

“You’re right with Arvid! He gets my ‘food’… But it doesn’t consist of dead bodies”, I explained, “remember Tyler Durden and his little soap manufacturing business?”

Alpha stared at me for a second before bursting out into laugher: “And that works?”

“Surprisingly, yes!”, I chuckled, “and it’s actually not that bad… I mean as long as it keeps me alive! I try not to think about it too much… And I certainly won’t eat you!”

“That’s good enough for me!”, Alpha smiled, “we can’t change much about what already has happened, but we certainly can make the best out of our situation!”

“But how?”

“We will work this out!”, a deeply determined Alpha spoke, “I’m not sure about the Ghost-thing… If I want to stay anymore after all of that bullshit… But the two of us will work everything out! And your new… ‘condition’ certainly makes a lot of things easier since you can just come over in a blink of a second no matter where I am, and you are… But that is ahead of us… Now, let’s concentrate on the here and now!”

Alpha looked at me, obviously nervous since he was fiddling with the sleeves of the ghoul costume he was still wearing, and a slight red colour had appeared on his cheeks that was visible despite the smudgy black paint smeared across his face…

“Martin, I… I can’t tha… tha… thank you eee… enough for coming here”, Alpha began to stutter, “ca… can’t thank you… enough… fo… for telling the… tru… truth!”

“Breathe, Alpha!”

Alpha inhaled sharply and the continued quickly as if the words had to leave his mouth as quickly as possible: “It… I… I couldn’t be happier that you… you came here and… and told me the truth… The feeling of loosing you… our friendship… I don’t even… wanna think about it… Thank you…”

“Alpha, it’s nothing! You would have done…”

“No!”, Alpha interrupted me, “you had the balls to tell me and I didn’t!”

“What are you talking about?”, I asked in confusion… I could literally see the blood rushing through Alpha’s nervous veins and grabbed his shaking hands in attempt to calm and comfort him: “Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as what happened to me… I trust you! You don’t have to tell me…”

“No!”, Alpha said again, though with a weak voice, “I… I ha… have to… I… I need… to… tell you… the truth… It… It’s been plaguing me… me for months now and… and I can’t keep it… any long… I… I ha… have… to… to tell you now… I’ve noticed it months ago and it’s killing me… I realized that something… ha… had changed between us… This isn’t only about friendship… At least not for me… anymore… I… I… I think… I am… I am… in… in… love with you!”


	12. Bilateral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, but work kept me rather busy...

“What!?”, open-mouthed I stared into Alpha’s icy blue eyes…

“You… you… heard me… It… it had... to get… out… and I… I won’t repeat… it… But it… had to get out! It… It’s been… on my mind for months… and… I couldn’t keep… quiet much longer… I… I… I hope… this… won’t… be… the… end… of… of our… friendship”, Alpha stuttered before he buried his face in my shoulder once more…

“Why should it be?”

Alpha looked up… His eyes still red from all the tears: “But… but… my fee… feelings…”

A wide smile had appeared on my face: “Alpha, why do you assume them to be unilateral?”

Alpha’s eyes grew wide… His jaw dropped: “This… this ca… can’t be…

To convince him of the opposite, I did what I had dreamt, hoped, fantasized and deeply longed for more than a decade… I gently pulled Alpha closer and simply kissed him… 

First, Alpha didn’t move… Obviously in shock and failing to process whatever was happening… 

But after a few nerve-wrecking seconds, he finally kissed back… It was as good as I remembered… His soft lips just felt right… His beard gently brushing against the stubble on my chin… He tasted just like last time – oh so sweet!

I wished that this moment would last forever… But eventually our lips parted… Alpha stared at me… Slightly out of breath… His shoulders rising and falling rapidly… His icy blue eyes still red… But gone was the sorrow… Replaced with something warm... And then, the corners of his mouth twitched to the smile only Alpha could pull off… A smile that warmed every corner of my heart… 

“Since when?”, Alpha wanted to know while still smiling in a way that only he could…

A hearty laugh left my throat: “You have no idea! Absolutely no idea, Alpha! But before I tell you, I want to know what made reconsider our ‘friendship’ and elevate it to another level?”

Alpha blushed: “Remember last November?”

“We were on tour, right?”

“Yeah, for almost three months at that point. I had never been away from home for such a long time… Remember when I told you how much I missed my family?”

In fact, I remembered that night like it was yesterday… It must have been very late… After a concert somewhere, well, after such a long time on the road, the venues and cities all kind of looked the same, the band had quickly gotten out of their costumes, packed and most had headed straight for the bunks to get a bit of sleep on the long drive to the next show… All but Alpha… And I couldn’t leave him alone…

“You told me all night, while everyone was sleeping, how much it pained you being away from home for such a long time, right?”

“Yeah, basically! And how much Papa teased me for admitting that…”

“He’s such an asshole!”

Alpha nodded his head: “Has always been! Well, unlike him you actually tried to make me feel better… You told me that we would be returning home soon… But more importantly, you told me that no matter where we go, we always take a piece of home with us…”

“Did I really say that?”

Alpha smiled: “Several times! And only after you had fallen asleep on my lap did I realize that this piece of home that had constantly been with me and comforted me and believed in me and encouraged me and had always been there for me was you! I remember staring at you while you were peacefully sleeping there and thinking nothing but how much I had grown accustomed to your constant company and how you always made me feel better… How much I liked you and couldn’t do this without you… And then suddenly, something in my head switched and I felt all warm… It’s hard to explain… I had been constantly on the search for this special someone and this special someone had been living directly under my nose for as long as I can remember… But… but…”

“You couldn’t tell me because you feared it would destroy our friendship.”

Alpha stared at his feet: “Exactly… It pained me at the same time as it gave me comfort… And since I couldn’t tell anyone… But at least, you were always there… It was so hard to mask what I truly felt… I… I… You…”

“I know what you mean! I felt the exact same way during the first months…”

“Since when?”, Alpha interrupted me, his eyes now directly meeting mine…

I laughed: “You really want to know?”

“Of course! I told you and now you have to tell me… Please!”

“Remember Claudio’s 25th birthday?”

Alpha laughed: “How can I possibly forget that one! I think I have never been that drunk in my life!”

“I know! But besides that, how much do you remember of that night?”

“You know how much alcohol we had… I don’t remember anything… Well, do you?”

I only smiled: “Unlike you, my dear, I didn’t down that much liquor…”

“What happened?”

“After you almost crashed through a table, I decided to take you home… I knew you wouldn’t make it to your place, so I took you to my place since it was only a short walk… I don’t know how exactly it happened but while I was trying to get you ready for bed, you instead pulled me closer and started kissing me…

“What?”, Alpha exclaimed, “we did that before?”

I laughed: “Yes, and it was awesome!”

Alpha crossed his arms in front of his chest: “Why can’t I remember that?!? And why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Oh, Alpha! You haven’t heard the rest of the story yet!”, I laughed, “well, not only did you kiss me, but you also declared your undying love for me… Despite enjoying the kisses, I thought it was a joke and because of the alcohol… But then…”

“What then?”

“Well, neither of us was wearing much at this point and you… you just dropped to your knees, took my boxers down with you, well, I don't even know how you managed to do that while being that drunk, and gave me the most amazing blowjob ever!”

“I did not!”

“Yes, you did! And it was amazing! And while you were so passionately working on me, I only thought that I wanted this to last forever! That I wanted you! And then, I came and realized that this was indeed real…”

“Did I…?”

I nodded my head: “And afterwards you kissed me like I’ve never been kissed before and urged me to free you… As you can image, I obeyed… I’ve never given a guy a blowjob, but you seemed to enjoy it… After you climaxed, you pulled me closer and like that, in a tight embrace, we fell asleep… Sadly, you didn’t remember anything the next morning… Well, except the big hangover…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”, Alpha asked with big eyes, “I mean it must have been horrible to live with this kind of feelings for… for 13 goddamn years…”

“I admit that it wasn’t easy at the beginning, but I survived… And if turning myself into a ghoul means finally revealing our feelings, it's definitely worth it already!”

“Oh, yes!”, Alpha agreed eagerly while pulling me closer to whisper in my ear, “it was definitively worth it! But there is one thing I find highly unfair…”

“And what is that?”

“That you remember, and I don’t”, Alpha said in a low suggestive voice while I felt his fingers moving downwards, “I want to change that now!”

“Go ahead!”, I chuckled, “I’ve been waiting 13 years for this!”


	13. Surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry for the long wait but thousands of things kept me from writing. I will update more frequently but don't expect weekly updates like I did with In The Woods

But before Alpha’s fingers could even reach anything down below, a loud knock made both of us jump…

“Alpha, where the fuck are you? We have to go! The shuttle is waiting for us! We have a concert to play! Get your ass out of the room!”

Alpha sighed as our eyes met: “One day, I’ll kill him!”

“Alpha!”, the voice continued to yell, “this is the last warning: get your ass out of that room!”

“What a lovely invitation!”, was my comment to which Alpha only rolled his eyes…

“Seriously, Omega, can’t you just spill his guts and eat his liver or something like that so that we’ll finally have our peace for once and…”

A heavy knock against the door made Alpha shut up…

“Alpha, is there someone with?”, Papa yelled, “whoever it is, it can’t be more important than your job!”

“No shit! Calm down! I’ll be there in a second”, Alpha screamed back and much to my disappointment let go of me to grab his black cassock and hastily put it on. While one silver button after another was closed shut, he looked at me in an apologetic way: “I’m sorry that I have to go… But we will discuss this once I’m back! I’ll try to get here as quickly as possible and then we’ll finally make our dreams come through! I’m…”

“Don’t worry about me!”, I said while stroking his stubbly cheek, “I’ll wait for you! Right here!”

Alpha smiled while reaching for his sash. Outside, we could hear impatient footsteps pacing up and down the door. Once the sash had been closed, Alpha pulled me closer and put a kiss on my lips: “I know that you’ll be here waiting for me! You have…”

The noise of splintering wood drowned whatever Alpha had wanted to say as the door of the hotel room was violently pushed or better kicked open…

Alpha’s hands left my body as he quickly turned around to face the door… Papa was standing there… His face furious and breath ragged… His hands clenched to fists with shoulders violently moving up and down… But I couldn’t see much more since Alpha was obscuring Papa a fraction of a second later…

But he couldn’t obscure the next few words: “You’re such a disgrace, Alpha! Seriously, can’t you even wait ‘til after the show! Or is that your way of dealing with the fact that Omega is no longer with us? You really think that your sex life is more important than the band?!? Than your job? That you’re more important than anyone else? That everyone is waiting for the oh-so-great Alpha? You should have learned your lesson from Omega! I know you asked a lot of questions, but he won’t make it! Not today and never ever! You’re nothing special despite what you think! I can replace you in a blink of an eye! And I will do that if you don’t move your ass right now!”

Without taking notice of me, Papa turned around to leave, while Alpha’s ragged breathing and the movements of his shoulders gave away that he was about to explode… But then Papa, being who he was and never having learnt when to shut up and when it was simply enough, must have thought better of it and turned back: “Alpha, who is that latest conquest of yours anyway? Are you so desperate to get laid that you take guys to your room now or have the woman of this world begun to see through your bullshit? Well, you don’t have to answer me but get rid of that guy!”

“No, I’m not!”, Alpha growled… I knew that tone… Alpha was close to eruption… It would have better if he had screamed...

“Aren’t you?”, Papa had stepped dangerously close… He and Alpha were now eye to eye… Only that Alpha was slightly taller…

“Aren’t you?”, Papa hissed, droplets of saliva were sent flying, as he grabbed the top of Alpha’s cassock, “if some scum you picked up in the gutter is more important to you than the band, more important than me, I can very well send you in the same hole I’ve sent Omega! I’m sure he’s home in Linköping, mourning about being sacked and hasn’t left the house ever since I threw him out of the band! You could join him, Alpha!”

“I don’t think he will! And I’ve left the house quite a few times ever since we spoke!”, I hissed coldly while stepping out of Alpha’s shadow. My movement was fast as a shark and took Papa by surprise…

His eyes widened as his feet left the ground: “Omega!”


	14. What You Made Me

“Papa”, was all that I said back coolly…

His jaw dropped while his feet were dangling in the air: “Is that really you?”

“Only what you made me!”

“P... p... please!”, he begged while desperately trying to support himself by clinging to my hands which were tightly gripping the neck of the papal costume he was already wearing. One green and one white eye, both surrounded by black and white makeup, were staring at me. 

“What should I do, Tobias? Release you? Just let you go? I don’t think so! You brought this over yourself…”

“I… I didn’t mean it…”

“Didn’t mean what? Didn’t mean to fire me…”

“The others…”

“Had nothing to do with it! Are you kidding me? How stupid do you think I am? That was only you! Nobody else! Only you! None of the others knew any of this!”

“P… please”, the pope now begged more desperately…

“Please what?”, I hissed, “should I just release you and let you go like nothing happened? What did you expect when you came up with the idea of firing me? That I would lock myself in my flat, possibly drink myself to death and never show myself again while your rise to fame would go on without ever dealing with me? Really?”

“Martin, you have to understand”, Tobias pleaded, “they overruled me… I had to…”

A cold laugh escaped my mouth: “Didn’t you get this the first time? I’m not buying your bullshit! Tobias, just think about it! Do you honestly believe that Alpha would ever do something like this? Ever? He’s been my best friend for as long as I remember and more! Friends don’t backstab each other, a lesson you should have learnt long ago! Should have seen past your ego…”

“But Alpha betrayed…”

“He fucking didn’t!”, I yelled, “stop telling me lies! Your behaviour is nothing but disgusting, but you probably don’t and will never realize that! I don’t care about your plans and what you tried to achieve with this little scheme, I just want to know why. Why did you do this to me? I believed us to be friends, weren’t we? I gave you, gave the band everything I had for the last seven years! Does that mean nothing? Why, Tobias? Why?”

I stared into his eyes. Suddenly, the mismatched eyes, just seconds ago full of fear, hardened, now filled with nothing but rage: “Friends? No, we weren’t friends! Rivals, but no friends! You wanted to take over Ghost! You…”

Before he could yell any more, I let go of the costume thus letting the pope crash to the floor. My eyebrows furrowed in disgust: “That’s the most repugnant thing I have ever heard in my life! Tobias, have you ever listened to yourself? You should be ashamed of yourself! I never wanted to take over this band! Only contribute! See it grow! Nothing else! Couldn’t handle that there was also somebody else writing music, could you? Or were it the “Omega” screams? Was it, because they didn’t yell your name? Who were you going to fire next? Alpha, because he had his fingers in the recording and producing of the records and also gets screamed at regularly? Or Water, because he’s a better guitar player than you? Air because he is the longest joining member after Alpha and me or because he is fucking taller than you? Is that it?”

My voice had grown louder and louder, while the air around me had charged noticeably… A dark and dangerous aura surrounding me that wanted nothing but leash off and destroy… 

“What ha… ha… happened to you?”, the evil pope stuttered, desperately trying to get on his feet but tripping over the long and heavy papal robe…

A wicked smile appeared on my face: “After Papa Emeritus so kindly got rid of me, the real dark forces took interest in me! I’d run if I were you! Run, Tobias! Run! Hide and never cross my path again! I’m just curious what you will tell the others and how long they’ll perform with you!”

The frightened pop didn’t answer… I just watched, as he fled room…

“I don’t think that’s necessary!”, a familiar voice answered instead, “there certainly won’t be any more concerts with that disgusting, lying scum but I think we’d like to hear an explanation! Those horns and that little magic trick looked fucking real!”


End file.
